


A Cold Slap of Reality

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Episode Related, M/M, past Kurt/Adam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 07:57:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt walked stiffly out of the coffee shop and onto the busy city sidewalk, still not quite sure what had just happened or why.</p><p>set between 5x03 (“The Quarterback”) and 5x04 (“A Katy or a Gaga”), with spoilers for but not beyond 5x04</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cold Slap of Reality

**Author's Note:**

> This week I really wanted to think about a few things that happened to Kurt before 5x04 and why his attitude is what it is during the episode. I wanted to fill in that gap a little more solidly.

Kurt walked stiffly out of the coffee shop and onto the busy city sidewalk, still not quite sure what had just happened or why. He kept his head high and his back straight as he strode away, and it was only after he rounded the corner, safely out of sight, that he pulled out his phone and sent a text.

It took a few long minutes for his phone to ring in reply, but finally Blaine called just as Kurt was beginning to think he’d have to call Rachel instead, who would be upset on his behalf but who wouldn’t understand at all.

“Hi,” Blaine said, a little breathless and with a smile evident in his voice. “Sorry, it took me longer than it should have to escape from study hall. Someone had the hall pass, and Mrs. Peterson didn’t want to let me go.”

“Adam just kicked me out of the Apples,” Kurt told him, unable to hold the words back as he stalked down the street. He was torn between rolling his eyes in disdain and being hurt. He had kept it together in the cafe, acquiescing without argument; now he seemed to be veering dangerously toward hurt, and his voice came out a little high and thin. His throat was beginning to tighten up. He told himself to stop it. Disdain was better, if he could work himself up to it.

“What?”

With impatient steps, Kurt dodged around a woman slowly pushing a stroller down the middle of the sidewalk. Shouldn’t someone with a jogging stroller be _jogging_? Wasn’t that the _point_? Ah, there was some disdain. Good. “Adam texted me to ask me to meet him for coffee this morning,” he said. “I thought he wanted to check on me to see how I was doing about Finn, like friends do.” Kurt had even been touched by the thought; silly him. “But instead, after a few minutes of awkward chatting and Downton Abbey spoilers he just kicked me out of the group!”

“Okay,” Blaine said slowly.

“I can’t believe this,” Kurt said, waving his free hand in a sharp movement before putting it back on the strap of his bag. “It’s not like we were together. We weren’t dating. It already hadn’t worked out. But now that I’m engaged, suddenly he doesn’t want me in his group?” It stung like salt water on an abrasion not to be wanted anymore when he’d thought they were friends, and he took a deep, frustrated breath.

Blaine was quiet for a moment, and his voice was a little strange when he offered, “I’m sorry.” He didn’t actually sound all that sad.

“What?” Kurt asked him. “Are you happy about this?”

“No. I’m not, Kurt. I promise.” Blaine let out a laugh that sounded almost embarrassed. “Sorry; I still like hearing you say we’re engaged,” he admitted.

With a laugh of his own, Kurt tipped his head up to the sky, a tiny measure of the unhappiness lifting from his heart. “I’m coming to you with a serious complaint, baring my wounded heart to you, and you’re mooning over the fact that I’m doing it all with your ring on my finger?” he said, as dryly as he could manage around his smile.

“Sorry,” Blaine said again, and he did seem contrite this time even if it was clear that he was smiling, too. “I mean, I am doing that, but I’m sorry. Go on. Adam doesn’t want you in his group anymore because of _us_?”

“Yeah.” Kurt crossed the arm not holding the phone over his chest as he waited at the curb for the light to change so he could cross the busy street. He thought of Adam’s too-sweet, too-earnest face shadowed with distance and unhappiness across the tiny cafe table and how he so calmly stated that it was for the best if Kurt wasn’t involved with the group anymore, the group that it wasn’t that long ago he’d all but begged Kurt to join. “He wasn’t nasty about it, but... it seems crazy to me. I don’t understand it. Why now?”

“He cares about you. It has to be difficult for him to see you and know he can’t be with you,” Blaine replied softly.

Kurt nodded, and he knew Blaine was thinking of their own time apart. He remembered just how excruciatingly painful it had been to see Blaine at the start, too, how it had made his heart feel like it was being broken all over again, ripped to pieces in his chest, but this was so different. He and Adam had barely been anything, not really, not in comparison. It should have been easier for Adam to let go.

“But this is _performing_ ,” he said, because that was more important than anything. “It goes beyond hurt feelings. You wouldn’t have done that. I wouldn’t have, either. If we’d broken up at McKinley, we both would have stayed in New Directions.” It was unthinkable for one of them to have left. Personal feelings came second to an excellent group, or at least they usually had by the end at McKinley, and that was why they were such a strong glee club. That was why they had won Nationals.

Blaine let out a slow breath, and for a moment Kurt wished he could feel it against his ear instead of the exhaust-filled breeze of the passing taxi that barely missed him as he hurried across the street; it wasn’t the same having this kind of conversation over the phone. “But this isn’t New Directions,” Blaine said. “It’s _Adam’s_ Apples.” The stress on Adam’s name was pointed.

“Fine,” Kurt said, walking a little faster, because for some reason that reminder hurt, too. He was used to having a bit of the ownership of the group he was in. “I know it’s his group, but you wouldn’t have kicked me out of the Warblers, either.”

“The Warblers weren’t _mine_ ,” Blaine insisted, his part in the old argument.

“That’s not how I remember it,” Kurt replied with a twisting ghost of a smile. His eye caught on a display of ice cream in the window of a confection shop he was passing, and he hesitated for a second; he was tempted by the promise of sweetness and chocolate, something wonderful in his mouth to wash away the bitter taste of sub-par coffee and rejection, but then he remembered it wasn’t even ten in the morning. Even he had to have some limits around comfort food. He pushed onward toward campus; he was going to be so early for class, but maybe he could find some better coffee there. “And you still would have let me stay.”

“Of course I would have,” Blaine said, gentle and soft and maybe a little bit offended on his behalf. Kurt liked the offended part best of all. “It’s only fair. And you were my friend first. You’ve always been my friend first.”

“I know,” Kurt said with a nod. He liked that he knew. He liked that he had always been able to count on Blaine caring about him, since the first moment they met. They’d had their rocky parts, but that’s what a friendship _was_. You didn’t throw out all of the good just because there was some bad.

But clearly Adam didn’t agree with him - with them - because here he was.

Kurt walked on in silence past a few more stores, a guy playing a terrible rendition of “Stairway to Heaven” on an accordion, and a large group of men in business suits paying absolutely no attention to anyone else on the sidewalk with them.

“Kurt? Are you okay?” Blaine asked him, still so gentle.

“I will be,” Kurt assured him, because of course he would, but it still hurt to be thrown out.

He chewed on his lip, his heart knotting up more with each step, becoming a heavier and heavier weight. He wished this hadn’t happened, and not just because he’d lost a good friend and a singing group. He was also so tired of his heart hurting. This was such a minor thing compared with losing Finn, but it still hurt. It was another loss. It was another thing that wanted to weigh him down instead of just letting him fly high.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it. He wasn’t flying high. Even without this, he wasn’t.

Kurt stared across the street, waiting for yet another light to turn so he could keep moving forward, and felt like his whole life was like being a pedestrian in New York. Even with a street that ran straight as a ruler, there were so many obstacles to dodge, so many other people walking in the same direction, trying to get there first, so many times he had to stop and wait when he just wanted to _go_.

It was hard to feel like he was going to be able to reach the goals he wanted to, even harder when he saw how much Rachel and Santana were succeeding while he was still stuck in his classes and not making the same kind of professional impact that they were. He knew he wasn’t the average rom com type; he had known that since he was old enough to spell ‘rom com’. But he’d kind of thought going to New York would give him more opportunities.

And it had. He was at NYADA, even if he didn’t get in the first time. He was working at Vogue.com, even in an unpaid internship. He had beaten Rachel at that NYADA diva-off, even if she was the one who’d gotten a Broadway lead. It wasn’t that he was going nowhere; it just didn’t feel like it was anywhere _big_.

While other people around him were skyrocketing toward success, he still wasn’t quite what other people wanted, not as he was, not beyond his job at the diner, maybe, where Gunther liked that he could hit the high harmonies if Rachel was on intermission.

He wasn’t even wanted in a silly singing group of his peers.

He’d really hoped he’d outgrow feeling like he didn’t fit.

“I just can’t believe that he only let me in because he wanted to date me,” Kurt sighed into the phone, his shoulders falling. That was what rankled more than anything; he was upset about the loss of the friendship of someone he really enjoyed, sure, but it hurt to know that he’d been invited into the group not for his talent, not for what he could bring to them, but for his face and what Adam in specific was looking for from him. It wasn’t his voice that got him that spot.

He’d been so sure it had been his voice.

He’d been so sure he was finally somewhere where what he had to offer was appreciated by the people around him.

“That can’t be true, Kurt. You’re amazing,” Blaine insisted. “You have an incredible talent.”

“If I were so integral to the group, he wouldn’t have asked me to leave,” Kurt said. “He wouldn’t have been able to.” It was that simple. He’d thought he’d found something of a new home in a group where he was noticed and wanted, and it turned out that he was wanted for something different.

“Can I tell you something?” Blaine asked after a distinct pause.

Kurt hunched his shoulders a little as he stepped up onto the opposite curb, not sure if he wanted to hear it, but he said, “Always.”

“You’re going to need to trust me on this,” Blaine said in his serious mentor voice, though there was an undertone of strong affection and a little amusement beneath it. “You can’t know this from your point of view. But it’s really hard being in love with you if you’re not in love back. It’s pretty damn awful, actually. I kind of feel sorry for him.”

“He wasn’t in love with me,” Kurt said. It was a ridiculous thought. He knew Adam had felt more than he’d ever managed in return, but they’d just been casual. It had never approached anything like he’d had with Blaine, as much as Adam might have wanted it and Kurt might have tried. “We didn’t get that serious, Blaine.”

“ _You_ didn’t,” Blaine told him. “Maybe he did.”

“But he didn’t know me that well,” Kurt insisted, though he felt the possibility of truth in Blaine’s words.

“How much did he need to know? I mean, look at you. You’re pretty irresistible.”

Kurt sighed again and felt a tendril of sadness and something like shame twist in his stomach. It was an odd thing, he thought, that the idea of being attractive to someone could make him feel this bad, but it was taking away what he really thought he had earned. “I don’t want to be irresistible.”

“You don’t?” Blaine said in obvious surprise.

“No,” Kurt said definitively. “I want to be respected, feared, and completely irreplaceable. Like Anna Wintour. Or Ginger Spice.”

Blaine let out a little laugh. “You’re irreplaceable to _me_ , Kurt. And respected. And every once in a while feared.”

Adjusting his bag on his shoulder, Kurt thumbed the by now familiar profile of the ring on his finger and took a breath to calm himself. “Thank you,” he said finally. It didn’t fix his problem of not being taken as seriously as he wanted to be by his peers and mentors, but it wasn’t insignificant that he got to face these challenges with Blaine at his side.

“You’re welcome,” Blaine replied.

“Although I may need to work harder on the feared part,” Kurt told him, just to hear him laugh again.

Blaine did, lighthearted and happy, and said with another smile that carried right through the phone, “Okay.”

Kurt smiled to himself, just a bit, and tipped his head toward his shoulder, like by curling around the phone he could curl around Blaine as well. “Anyway. I’ll be fine. Thank you for listening.” He realized something with a shock like a bucket of cold water was dumped over his head, and he hurried on. “I know this is probably really awkward, actually, me talking about seeing Adam. I’m sorry if it is. I promise you don’t need to be worried.”

“I’m not,” Blaine assured him. “Really, Kurt. It’s, um. It’s a lot easier this time. We’re engaged.”

“We are,” Kurt agreed. His heart lifted even more; he apparently wasn’t immune to hearing about it, either.

“So I’m not worried. I know this is forever.” Blaine sounded calm and certain, and some of Kurt’s sharp edge of concern about mis-stepping dulled.

“Good,” Kurt said with a nod. “Because it is.”

“I know,” Blaine said, the warmth in his voice drawing another unexpected smile out of Kurt.

Kurt turned into the little courtyard in front of the dance building and sank down on one of the stone benches set off to the side. The stone was cool to the touch from the shade in contrast to the warm spring air.

Across from him a small group of students was singing along with the music coming out of one of their phones, and he was struck by a wave of longing, not for Adam’s Apples but for New Directions, for being a part of a group in that way, for having that kind of family. As much as he had Rachel and Santana, he desperately missed it, missed it even more now that Finn was gone and the magic of New Directions could never fully be revisited.

He slumped a little, thinking of Finn, feeling the sadness stirring deep in his heart, feeling the weight of it on his shoulders, feeling the hole that he knew would always ache without him. No, he thought, he definitely needed to stop losing family.

The Apples had never really been his, though, he realized. They were Adam’s home, not his. Maybe the group could have become family, but it hadn’t gotten there.

He needed something of his own. He needed something he could control, that he’d be the center of no matter what else happened. And he needed something that would propel _him_ forward.

Life was short, sometimes way too short. There were no promises. It didn’t matter that he’d gotten to New York and into NYADA. That didn’t mean anything about his future, really. It didn’t guarantee him anything at all. He could work and work and work at NYADA, he could be himself and try hard and yet never get anywhere in this city. And the way life worked, he might not even have the time to do all of that.

He needed to be realistic. He needed to figure out exactly what he had to do to get where he wanted to go and just do it.

“I should start a band,” Kurt said, sitting up straight as inspiration struck. “Or organize a weekly flash mob in the middle of Times Square. Or spearhead a highly conceptual performance art society that specializes in singing show tunes arranged like Gregorian chants.”

“Um... Maybe the band?” Blaine said slowly, like he wasn’t entirely sold on the other ideas. There was a muffled sound beyond him and then the thud of a door, and he all but whispered, “I’m sorry, Kurt, but I should probably get back to study hall. I just had to duck into the bathroom to hide from Becky. If she catches me she’s going to make a citizen’s arrest and drag me into Sue’s office to ask her to give me detention for being out of class without a pass. Again.”

“Okay,” Kurt said. He completely understood, but it all seemed so far away, hall passes and detentions, trivial details when there were so many bigger worries. College was so different. As hard as it was - and it was so, so hard and complicated - at least there was more freedom. Blaine deserved it, too. “I can’t wait until you’re here. And not just because we won’t have to dodge self-appointed hall monitors if we want to talk.”

“No, we’ll be able to do it in person,” Blaine said, his voice going soft with excitement.

Kurt found a smile rising onto his face at the thought of sitting in this very courtyard with Blaine, at their kitchen table, in their shared bed. They could hold hands or find comfort in a hug. It wouldn’t make the underlying problems any easier, but it still would be better than sitting here doing it all alone, with Blaine doing the same with his problems so far away.

“I can’t wait,” Kurt said again. “But go before you get caught. I’ll talk to you tonight? And I promise I’ll stop making it all about me so you can tell me all about whatever crazy assignment Mr. Schue has for you this week.”

“You aren’t making it all about you,” Blaine said. “You had things you needed to talk about. But I’ll be sure to give you a full report.”

“Good.” Kurt took a breath and got ready to face the hurts on his own once more without the lifeline of his fiance and best friend virtually beside him. “And thank you.”

“Any time, Kurt. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Kurt said, and with that they hung up. He held his phone in the palm of his hand for a moment, like he was clinging to Blaine’s fingertips as they parted, before tucking it away.

Kurt bounced his foot in thought and watched the singers for a few moments, judging them with the experience of years in show choir. They were all good. Solid. Nothing exceptional but still so very talented. They were everything he’d expect from NYADA students, and he was torn between enjoying their music and being discouraged that they were his competition for everything he wanted to achieve. They were only _part_ of his competition, in fact, only a tiny part of it.

As he sat there listening to their voices rise and fall in effortless harmonies, barely a flaw in them for him to pick out, he wondered how _he_ was supposed to make his way in the world by being different when there were so many people out there who would so easily fill what casting directors and audiences - and Adam and his stupid Apples - wanted without having to stretch at all.

He needed to do _something_. He couldn’t just sit there and assume people were going to wake up and want him one of these days. He’d thought New York would see him differently. He’d thought when Adam had wanted him in his group that it was proof of that. But it wasn’t.

He needed to stand out for other reasons, not for his unique voice or his exceptional taste in clothing but for things people actually _wanted_. He needed to prove that he was _better_ than his competition while doing almost the same things they were, not so different from them that people with no imagination couldn’t see that he was capable of the basics as well as so much more.

Kurt stood up from the bench and brushed off his jeans before heading up the steps to the building. His bag was light on his shoulder, but he felt weighed down. His walk hadn’t been that far, but he felt worn out. Each stair felt just a little higher than it should have. He didn’t let any of it slow him down, but he could feel it.

He was tired of everything being hard. He was tired of swimming against the stream every day, even in New York. He was tired of being accepted despite who he was instead of because of it.

Maybe he would never be accepted because of who he was, not by people who didn’t already love him. Maybe he just had to face that fact. He wasn’t going to change who he was, but maybe he shouldn’t waste whatever time he had trying to make people see what was special about him when it would never actually get him the success he wanted.

Failure wasn’t an option for Kurt Hummel. He just had to be realistic. Maybe it was time for a new path to reach the success he ached for down to his bones.

Kurt wasn’t quite sure what it would take to get him noticed but not stand out quite so much. He didn’t know how to fit himself into what was popular and desired, but if there was one thing that was true about him - apart from his unparalleled ability to accessorize and his flawless ear for songs that he and Blaine should sing together in the car - it was that he was never short of ideas. He’d figure it out.

Pulling open the door to the building, Kurt looked back over his shoulder at the student-filled courtyard, at the busy street, and at the buildings beyond, hiding the great sprawl of New York behind them.

“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere,” he sang to himself, with less hope than he’d have liked but still with the fire of determination that always filled him. “It’s up to you, New York, New York.”

**Author's Note:**

> Reminder: I am spoiler-free! Please do not mention anything that's coming ahead! Thank you! <3


End file.
